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Thursday, January 31, 2008

"According to the Post, the CIA relies on the Brotherhood for intelligence.

"'Mastermind of Terror' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age sixteen. Mohammed Atta's father is a member...

"...the CIA is reporting favorable things about the group via the willing vessel of the Washington Post. Muslim Brotherhood is also the financial and organizational backbone of not only Al Qaeda, but also Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad...

HENRI PAUL's BLOOD - "Professor Atholl Johnston, a clinical pharmacologist, said one of the blood samples that appeared to show the chauffeur had drunk alcohol was probably not his... 'The most likely explanation is that it isn't Henri Paul's blood.'" - Paul blood samples 'could have been cooked'

"Northern Rock gave half-a-million to Labour's favourite think-tank, the IPPR. It also employed Gordon's personal pollster, Deborah Mattinson, as an adviser. Of all the pollsters to seek advice from, why her? Why give money to that think-tank? Nowadays it is very rare for publicly quoted companies to make politically partisan donations." - Guy Fawkes' blog of parliamentary plots, rumours and conspiracy ...

Libya has ratified a contract with BP after the London government drafted a prisoner transfer agreement that could include the alleged Lockerbie bomber.

"The $900m (€600m, £450m) exploration contract was part of a package of agreements arranged by Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, on a state visit to Libya last year.

BALI and AIDS. "Unlike other parts of Indonesia, where brothels are legal, prostitution is illegal on the island. Despite this, there are well known red light districts on the island, most of which are in the main tourist spots. A study carried out in Bali last year by the Kerti Praja Foundation found that there are at least 8,800 prostitutes with some 85,000 customers. "Around 14 percent of prostitutes have already contracted the virus..." - Indonesia: Authorities eye clampdown on prostitution in Bali

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Neil Oliver, who presented the BBC series 'Coast', knows a lot about the coast of Britain.

Oliver wrote in the magazine DGB Life, February 2008, that "there is no more beautiful part of the world than the Galloway Coast."

Dumfries and Galloway is a neglected part of the world, particularly when it comes to transport links.

If it was an independent state, like Lichtenstein, Dumfries and Galloway could be rich. But Dumfries and Galloway is not an independent state and it lacks the power to make the big decisions. The really big decisions are made in London. The talented people tend to leave Dumfries and Galloway and head south.

If you cycle off the beaten track in Dumfries and Galloway, you will come across an Enid Blyton - John Buchan - Peter Pan - Rupert Bear - Gavin Maxwell sort of world. Think of mysterious castles, rounded hills and enchanted bays.

J M Barrie went to school in Dumfries, chief town of Dumfries and Galloway, and there he spent the happiest days of his life (Victoria Terrace).

Robert Burns had a house in Dumfries (Burns Street).

Part of John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps was filmed in the Dumfries and Galloway hills and valleys.

The gentle hills of Galloway are like the ones in the Rupert Bear or Enid Blyton books: gently rounded, with clumps of trees, rocky outcrops, fluffy little clouds and sometimes deep blue sky.

When it's not raining, the light is incredibly bright and the air so very clear, hence the attraction to artists.

This is not sunny Spain, but the climate tends to be mild; a possibly drier version of Cornwall or the Lake District.

Gavin Maxwell, author of Ring of Bright Water, was born in Dumfries and Galloway.

Drumlanrig Castle

Near Thornhill is exotic, multi-turreted 17th century Drumlanrig Castle, which has paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.

This is one of Britain's sexiest castles. It is home to the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. It was a Queensberry who was the father of Lord Arthur Douglas.

Coastal Kirkcudbright is an attractive and aristocratic "artist's town", associated with the Glasgow Boys.

Hornel

Kirkcudbright's Broughton House is where the artist Edward Hornel used to live. For part of the year, you can tour the beautiful house and see Hornel's Japanese-style pictures of little girls, some naked, and his magical garden, which is probably the very best garden in the world.

Kirkcudbright has a wild life park and a fabulous jazz festival each June.

Weapons testing at Dundrennan has led to certain worries. "Although 27 tonnes of depleted uranium have been fired into the sea at the Kircudbright range none of the shells has been recovered despite extensive searches....the controversial shells ...blamed for causing...Gulf War Syndrome..." according to The Galloway News.

Wigtown, which looks rather French, is Dumfries and Galloway's book town and it has at least 20 book businesses.

Gatehouse of Fleet has a large second hand book shop, run by poet Robin Munro. Gatehouse's Cally Palace Hotel has AA one rosette food and a super golf course; Georgian buildings; bonny views of hills.

New Abbey is associated with John Balliol, the founder of Balliol College, Oxford. This pretty village has an abbey, a museum of costume and a tearoom.

Castle Douglas has the best shopping in the area, a caravan park, a cycle shop, golf, a boating loch, a little art gallery, a theatre, one of the best second hand book shops in Scotland and the tiny Sulwath brewery which produces the world's tastiest real ales (Knockendoch is a dark copper coloured brew tasting of deeply roasted malts) and which provides tours. Castle Douglas is close to Threave Gardens and Threave Castle.

Dalbeattie has some of the friendliest people in Britain. It has the fabulous little Dalbeattie Museum of Victoriana (restricted opening hours). The officer on the deck of the Titanic, when it sank, was a man from Dalbeattie. The Dalbeattie area is famous for off-road cycling.

The National Trust's hilly Threave Gardens, near the town of Castle Douglas, has a magical walled garden, glasshouses, an eastern style pond, rock plants, tall trees, rhododendrons and heavenly views on a clear day.

Logan Botanic Garden, 14 miles South of Stranraer, at Port Logan, open March-October, has water, walled, terrace, woodland and other small gardens, with tree ferns, palm trees, climbers... and there's a nice licensed restaurant.

Crossmichael, near Castle Douglas, used to have a Michelin starred restaurant, but it moved to Leith in Edinburgh, which is where the money and the power lie.

Buddhists, and others, will enjoy the Samye-Ling Tibetan Centre at Eskdalemuir. Here you will find a magnificent golden-roofed temple, and the oldest Tibeten centre in the West.

Port Patrick

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Rockcliffe is an Enid Blyton sort of coastal village with mystery islands, beaches, rock pools and (according to the local papers) smugglers not too far away. Great for walks. Nice tearoom. Yachts and pubs at nearby Kipford. (Wash your hands after building castles on the beach. Watch out for incoming tides).

Dumfries is a small town which straddles the River Nith.

Dumfries has some superbly attractive Victorian and medieval buildings which are now right next to some truly hideous 60's buildings and various carparks.

The streets are often covered in chewing gum, plastic bags and vomit.

Dumfries could be as beautiful as any town in Europe. But it is not.

You will see lots of young people who look unemployed and seriously malnourished (drugs? AIDS? poverty?).

Some of the school kids from JM Barrie's old school look as scruffy as you'll get (although they will politely offer directions). You begin to think you are in the Third World.

"A man has been accused in court at Dumfries of being concerned in the supplying of HEROIN to others in the grounds of DUMFRIES ACADEMY.... (The accused) pleaded not guilty to the charge alleged to have taken place over a NINE MONTHS PERIOD..." Dumfries Courier.

You will seldom see a policeman in Dumfries and Galloway when they are needed.

Dumfries has few restaurants we would want to recommend. We did not enjoy our visit to the Linen Room. The pubs tend to sell that terrible McEwans or Tennants beer rather than the tasty local real ale.

Dumfries has a number of attractions:

1. The Gracefield Arts Centre which too often seems to be closed.

2. The house where J M Barrie once lived. But, amazingly, Dumfries has no museum honouring the author of Peter Pan!

"It was the original Never Land, the inspiration for Peter Pan. But the Dumfries townhouse Moat Brae, auctioned yesterday for £80,000, is not destined to become a shrine to J M Barrie...It was in the Enchanted Garden of this house, chasing, climbing, and prowling through the undergrowth, that the young Barrie met Captain Hook, Tinkerbell and the other characters..." -Glasgow Herald.

Had this house been bought by Dumfries Council it could have brought in millions of tourists from all over the world.

Formerly this was one of the biggest mental institutions in the world - world famous and set up by a rich philanthropist; now it is university buildings, a decent hotel, museum, gardens, and a smaller mental institution.

4. Dumfries also has one of Britain's best looking churches - St Michaels. Robert Burns is buried outside.

5. Dumfries has a theatre linked to J M Barrie.

6. There is a Camera Obscura and a museum.There are lots of charity shops.

Loch Ken, near Castle Douglas, is for windsurfers. The Galloway Sailing Centre at Loch Ken can tell you about Dinghy Courses, powerboating courses, canoeing courses, gorge scrambling and quad bikes.

Family fun can be had at the award winning Cream o' Galloway, Rainton, Gatehouse of Fleet, Castle Douglas. Open Easter until October. This place has an adventure playground and nature trail as well as a restaurant selling the best ice cream in the UK.

Cycling was invented in Dumfries and galloway. Cyclists might enjoy the route from Rhonehouse to Kirkcudbright ( 7 miles, deserted road, flowers, sheep, rabbits, little hills like babies' buttocks, country cottages).... or Palnackie to Castle Douglas taking the route over the hills. The Dalbeattie area is famous for having off-road trails and miles and miles of quiet country roads.

This area has traditionally been used by the armed forces for hush hush training of special forces (and 'Moslem terrorists', according to newspapers). Expect to see the occasional Hawk fighter, tank, or men dressed as trees.

Military aircraft have crashed into local farms. "The latest crash was only seconds away from Lockerbie, in one direction, and Dumfries in the other..." according to The Dumfries Courier.

Lockerbie is famous because of Major Charles McKee - Pan Am Flight 103 hit Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.

On that flight "were at least 2 US Intelligence agents and a Mr Khalid Nazir Jafaar." The Dumfries and Galloway police began to investigate. But for two days it was "difficult" for them to collect evidence as "CIA agents combed the countryside for the luggage of the dead American intelligence agents and a suitcase full of heroin.... 59 bodies were left lying around Lockerbie until 24 December...but by then there were only 58 bodies..." according to Lester Coleman.

TRANSPORT

Much of the rail network is gone. The road network is poor. The nearest airport is at Newcastle in England. As transport is the key to the success of an area, Dumfries and galloway has its problems!

National Express coaches will take you from London, Birmingham, Manchester etc to Dumfries and beyond.

A grotty little train will transport you, amid much litter, from Carlisle to Dumfries. The train used to go to Stranraer, but not any more.

Bus services are poor. Many local buses travel too fast. Stagecoach buses have little leg room and usually no toilets even on the longest journeys.

"MacEwans Coaches boss is ready to defend his company after it was branded unreliable this week... Members of the environment and infrastructure committee were told that while Stagecoach Western - which has also attracted a significant number of complaints - had improved, MacEwans had failed to and in some cases had become worse..." Dumfries Courier Oct 13, 2000.

Dumfries by William Miller

WHERE TO STAY?

Brighouse Bay leisure park takes caravans and tents and has lodges and cottages. It "boasts a vast range of on-site facilities that appeal to everyone, from small boats on the pond for the younger generation to Quad Bikes for the thrillseekers. The indoor pool complex offers swimming for all ages with a jacuzzi and steam room for a spot of relaxation after all that work.The 18 hole Golf Course is championship length and has glorious views across the Irish Sea. There is also a 9 hole par 3 for all the family."

Similar to Brighouse Bay is Sandyhills Bay, sitting at the foot of wooded hills and close to a sheltered sandy beach.

There are many other caravan and camp sites.

You could stay in DUMFRIES which has at least one good Bed and Breakfast.

NEWTON STEWART, a quiet contry town in the middle of John Buchan style countryside, has the excellent KIRROUGHTREE HOUSE hotel which has an AA 2 Rosette restaurant! The hotel is AA 3 stars. Lovely, posh country house interior.

PORTPATRICK, on the coast, somewhat remote, has the wonderful KNOCKINAAM LODGE HOTEL, the restaurant of which has AA 3 Rosettes! (same as London's River Cafe, Bibendum....)

The people of Dumfries and Galloway are the people who ran Hong Kong (Jardines and Flemings...) and ran a large part of the Empire! You'll bump into Galloway people in Africa, South America and Australasia.

Strangely, this area has quite a few millionaires. Lots of big houses. They must like the scenery.

"Scotland puts a smile on your face" according to the Glasgow Herald. "The Scots are the happiest people in Britain, according to a new study of the nation's mood....In Scotland the LifeIndex score was 6.6 out of ten. London had the lowest score 5.4 ....."

Dumfries and Galloway has a lower crime rate than Glasgow, London, Rwanda..... It has the best crime clear-up rate in Britain.

TO SUM UP - THIS IS BETTER THAN the Lake District or Cornwall if you have a romantic sort of mind and a car or a bike.

"An informal group in the Mossad composed of right-wing operatives and working hand-in-hand with the Turkish and Pakistani Intelligence was offering US nuclear technology to some Arab countries and to other countries. They did this for profit and, in some cases also for political motives." - Nuclear proliferationcannot be controlled now

THE EAST SUSSEX COAST - "The English aristocracy had nearly always been recruited from the ranks of flatterers, cut-throats, boyfriends... So it was not so strange that this blue valley on the coast of East Sussex was populated by wine-bibbing lords who had formerly been Marxist union men..."

HOVE - "Hove was low spirits and lawns."

LITTLEHAMPTON - "The sort of place where people did little but water their plants..."

LYME REGIS - "a continuous line of traffic being squeezed between tea shops and coachinginns..."

CORNWALL - "The loathing for tourists and outsiders was undisguised."

WALES - " ... seemed like an earlier version of England - upright and antique and dusty and church-going, with all the colour schemes wrong."

Theroux likes the Welsh. "Welsh politeness was soft-hearted and smiling. Even LLANELLI's Skinheads were well-behaved, and the youths with swastikas on their leather jackets, and bleached hair and earrings, or green hair and T-shirts saying Anarchy - even they seemed sweet-natured."

BELFAST - "I knew at once that Belfast was an awful city. It had a bad face - mouldering buildings, tough-looking people, a visible smell, too many fences..."

EDINBURGH- "a city of black crags and old solemn tenements... It was the most beautiful city in Britain and one of the most beautiful in Europe."

GLASGOW - Theroux finds Glasgow peaceful, even pretty.

"The city looked dignified."

But, Theroux does notice one less dignified aspect of people and trains in the Glasgow area:

"the men who sat six to a table with a bottle of vodka and twenty cans of Tartan Ale; the families sitting in a nest of newspapers and sandwich wrappers and plastic bags... the children screaming, 'How much farva!' and 'I can hear funda!'...an atmosphere of sour mayonnaise and stale cigarette smoke...."

Theroux likes the Scots!

"I was reluctant to leave Scotland; I had liked nearly everyone I had met."

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Theroux is at his best when describing the people he meets.

"'We do bed and breakfast,' Margaret Skeat said.

Vesta Skeat was thirteen and sneaked lipstick when her mother was not looking...

"'Is that all the clobber you have?" she said, standing in the doorway of my room...

"Her mother screamed her name. Vesta said softly, 'Shut up, you silly cow,' and then winked at me..."

Theroux stayed mainly in Bed and Breakfasts.

"I was often warmed by a small thrill in following the younger landladies up four flights to the tiny room at the top of the house."

Theroux stayed in a B&B in Southport.

"Trish likes getting down on all fours. A lot. To shampoo the carpet, or sweep the carpet, or pick up toys from the floor...

"Trish was frequently on her hands and knees when I was sitting in the room...It was as if, in ape terms, she was 'presenting' to me - the bum-show that matters so much in baboon society..."

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Theroux visits Butlins, in MINEHEAD -

"The more I saw of Butlin's the more it resembled English life; it was very close to reality in its narrowness, its privacies and its pleasures....

"electronic games were easier than sports and eating junk food had become another recreation. No one seemed to notice how plain the buildings were....

"I went to the talent show auditions in the Gaiety Revue Theatre. A girl of eight did a suggestive dance to a lewd pop song... Most of the parents were elsewhere- playing one-armed bandits and drinking beer."

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And what does Theroux (an American) really think about the English?

"Person to person, I had found them truthful and efficient and humane..."

"But anonymity made them lazy, dishonest and aggressive.... over the phone they were unhelpful and frequently rude..."

"If I had only one word to describe the expression of England's face I would have said: insulted."

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On occasions, Theroux was forced to stay in large hotels.

"It was hard to distinguish hotels in England from prisons or hospitals. Most of them were run with the same indifference or cruelty and were equally uncomfortable."

Actually, Theroux did like some of the small hotels he stayed in. "The English do small things well and big things badly."

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In Bristol he visits the St Pauls district, whererace riots had left streets of gutted buildings.

"In the course of a generation or two the parents' authority had been weakened and the children had stopped submitting. In fact the children had become British," writes Theroux.

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British children?

"one mother (English), looking at the tormented face of her wet baby, grew very cold and sarcastic.

" 'Someone's going to have a warm bottom in a minute!' she said.

"The baby groaned like a starving monkey and tensed its fingers, indicating fear and frustration."The Welsh people on the train stared at this behaviour and thought: The English!"

~~~

In Southport, Theroux meets Jason.

"Even Jason, who was 12, was lacking in hope. he was a bright boy but he said he was in the 'B' class. 'All the posh woons are in the 'A' class. Teacher's pets and that. He said he was planning to leave school when he was 16.

" 'What would your mother say about that?'

" 'Me moom don't care.'

~~~

Theroux feels sorry for some of the children of Anglesey. "Anglesey...was all council flats and uncut grass, barking dogs and broken stone walls. I felt sorry for the children, kicking tin cans, their hands in their pockets and their hair blowing, dreaming of being plasterers."

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Theroux worries about the poor. He considers that in Britain "directors were treated absurdly well, and workers badly."

(How true. Not so long ago, The Sunday Times pointed out that the bosses of Britain's top 100 companies earn on average £1,700,000 per year. And are they doing a good job? In recent times BT shareholders saw their shares drop about 60%)

At one point in the book, Theroux makes a prediction about the future of Britain. He believes Britain would become a "a wilderness in which most people lived hand to mouth, and the rich would live like princes."

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Theroux worries about violence. "I no longer felt that place-names like Taunton or Exeter or Bristol were evocative of anything but graffiti-covered walls....

"The graffiti suggested that England was changing into a ....more violent place."

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'Who the heck does Theroux think he is?' you may ask, as your blood pressure rises. Well, he's American, and he admits that all is not well in America! He lived for five years in Africa, working, I think, for the peace Corps. He taught English in Singapore. He did a lot of travelling: China, South America..... He lived for some years in London. And he admits that when he's critical, the problem may be with him!

He writes: "Morcambe was wrapped around the edge of a dirty sea, scowling, its blackened terraces and hotels reminiscent of certain fierce churches - all spikes and shadows...

"I imagined day-trippers getting off the train and taking one look and bursting into tears. But of course most people at Morcambe were enjoying themselves in the drizzle, and the fault was mine, not theirs."

Well, normal people like drizzle, don't they?

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Theroux LOVED some parts of coastal Britain.

THE NORTH WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND - "This was the most spectacular coastline I had seen so far in Britain - huger than Cornwall, darker than Wales, wilder than Antrim...

"It was a splendid ride to Mallaig - one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world....

"That night I stared out of the window at the freakish mountains of Skye. They were sharp pointed , fantastic and high like peaks in dragon stories...

"Skye...it was a surprise and a pleasure to find a place I wished to return to....I wanted to come here again with someone I loved and say 'Look.'"

ST ANDREWS - "There was not a town its size in Britain to compare with St Andrews...the white stone ruins and the brown stone buildings perched on the rocky cliffs of a wide bay....like a lively cloister with the roof off..."

Monday, January 28, 2008

"Kenya... is the base for US intelligence operations in East Africa and especially the Horn of Africa... The newly discovered oil reserves of Lake Albert in Eastern Congo are to be brought to the coast at Mombasa through a pipeline that will have to run right across the country... China is currently involved in major highway projects in Kenya." - Kenya: post-election violence continues

He was put into power with the help of the CIA and reportedly toppled with the help of the CIA.

Jeffrey Winters, professor of political economy at Chicago's Northwestern University, has said of Suharto:

"Everything turned on the don, all business went through the don, the don was the source of security, and he destroyed everything, Parliament, the rule of law, the intellectual community, and turned the police and military into his personal instruments...

"Suharto squandered Indonesia's best years, when it had ample oil and gas, and had very close ties to the United States and the West, with access to developmental funds at very cheap rates. The growth rate should have been much higher." (Indonesia still struggles after Soeharto)

However,Indonesia under Suharto made much less progress than its neighbours Singapore and Malaysia.

Indonesia under Suharto spent a very small proportion of its wealth on schools or hospitals or housing for the poor.

Housing for the poor

Visitors to Jakarta during the Suharto years may have seen glitzy skyscrapers being built, but they may not have seen the malnourished children hidden away in the slums or in certain rural areas, and they may not have noticed the killing going on in West Papua or Aceh or East Timor. Often the Suharto government statistics about progress were as accurate as those from Stalinist Russia.

Malnutrition and TB

The Suharto legacy is a country where many roads are full of potholes, many rural schools look as if they are falling down, many sick children die because their parents cannot afford medicine, many hillsides have been stripped of their trees, and the American trained generals are still pulling the strings. No money for typhoid medicine

It has often been alleged that Suharto's father was a wealthy Chinese-Indonesian merchant and that Suharto was an illegitimate child.

"The absence of official documentation and certain aspects of Suharto's early life that are inconsistent with that of a Javanese peasant (Suharto received, for example, an education fairly early on), has led to several rumors of Suharto being the illegitimate child of a well-off benefactor, which included a being the child of a Yogyakarta aristocrat or well-off Chinese Indonesian merchant. Western biographer R.E. Elson believes that such rumors cannot be entirely ruled out." - Suharto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suharto learnt much about militarism from the Japanese army.

During World War II, Suharto worked for the Japanese controlled police force and then for the Japanese-controlled militia, the Peta.

In 1945, with the collapse of Japan,SukarnoandMohammad Hattadeclared the independence of Indonesia. This independence was not accepted by the Dutch or the British and led to conflict.In 1946, Suharto became head of an Indonesian regiment stationed in Yogyakarta.

In 1947 Suharto married Siti Hartinah, a Christian from a well connected family.

Siti Hartinah converted to Islam. She became known as 'Madame Ten Percent', a play on her name, Ibu Tien. When contracts were being given out she reportedly insisted on getting at least ten percent of the proceeds. Later, she was called 'Madame Fifty Percent'. (Ibu Tien Buried Today)

Child labour

In 1949, most of Indonesia was given independence by the Dutch.

Between 1954 and 1959, Brigadier General Suharto was the commander responsible for Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces.

At this time he became friends with Chinese-Indonesian businessmenLiem Sioe LiongandBob Hasanand was involved with them in various 'business enterprises'.

Suharto reportedly became involved in a 1959 smuggling scandal and he was transferred to the army Staff College in Bandung. Later, Suharto became commander of the keyKostradregiment(Strategic Reserve). (Suharto - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Around 1956, the CIA and Britain's MI6 appear to have decided to topple Indonesia's President Sukarno, partly because he was 'non-aligned' rather than pro-American.

Indonesia did have a communist party, but in the world's biggest Moslem country, it was never likely to do particularly well in elections. The two biggest parties in Indonesia were Sukarno's Partai Nasional Indonesia and the Islamist party Masyumi.

"CIA pilots took to the air to carry out bombing and strafing missions in support of the rebels... "Sukarno later claimed that on a Sunday morning in April, a plane bombed a ship in the harbor of the island of Ambon-all those aboard losing their lives-as well as hitting a church, which demolished the building and killed everyone inside "He stated that 700 casualties had resulted from this single run.

"On 15 May, a CIA plane bombed the Ambon marketplace, killing a large number of civilians on their way to church on Ascension Thursday..."Three days later, during another bombing run over Ambon, a CIA pilot, Allen Lawrence Pope, was shot down and captured... "He was to spend four years as a prisoner in Indonesia before Sukarno acceded to a request from Robert Kennedy for his release.

"Pope was captured carrying a set of incriminating documents, including those which established him as a pilot for the US Air Force and the CIA airline CAT."

The CIA and its friends did their best to undermine the Indonesian economy.

In 1965, some kind of coup took place in Indonesia. By 1966, Suharto had emerged as the country's leader. He became president in 1968.

In the months that followed the coup, army death squads, often recruited from Muslim and Catholic youth groups, murdered up to one million people.

Bali and other parts of Indonesia were awash with blood.

The CIA is reported to have given the Indonesian military lists of people who were to be dealt with.

"The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travellers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies."

Suharto now brought in his New Order government.

The military were to be the people who pulled the strings.

Every institution of any importance was to be dominated by the military. Everyone from cabinet minister to governors to village officials was likely to have a military connection. The military was to be involved in running various profitable businesses.

The USA stopped undermining the economy. Suharto allowed the USA and other western nations to invest and take control of many of the mining and other businesses in Indonesia.

"In November 1967, the greatest prize was handed out at a remarkable three-day conference sponsored by the Time-Life Corporation in Geneva. Led by David Rockefeller, all the corporate giants were represented: the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British American Tobacco, Siemens and US Steel and many others. Across the table sat Suharto’s US-trained economists who agreed to the corporate takeover of their country, sector by sector. The Freeport company got a mountain of copper in West Papua. A US/ European consortium got the nickel. The giant Alcoa company got the biggest slice of Indonesia’s bauxite. America, Japanese and French companies got the tropical forests of Sumatra."

Rural PovertyThe people who became rich were:

1. The indonesian generals

2. Members of Suharto's Golkar Party.

3. Suharto's Chinese-Indonesian business friends.

4. The Suharto family

5. Investers in companies like Freeport, linked to Henry Kissinger, which has a gold mine in Indonesia.

The military and Golkar acted as intermediaries between businesses and the Indonesian government. "This led to bribery, racketeering, and embezzlement. Funds from these practices often flowed to foundations (yayasan) controlled by the Suharto family."[21]

At the start of May 1998, students were holding peaceful demonstrations on university campuses across the country. They were protesting against massive price rises for fuel and energy, and they were demanding that President Suharto should step down.

On May 12th, students at Jakarta's Trisakti University, many of them the children of the elite, planned to march to parliament to present the government with their demands for reform. The police prevented the students from marching.

Some time after 5pm, uniformed men on motorcycles appeared on the flyover which overlooks Trisakti. Shots rang out. Four students were killed.

Riots of May 13-14

On the 13th of May there were reports of rioting in the area around Trisakti. President Suharto was attending a conference in Egypt and the military top brass went off to Malang in East Java to attend a ceremony.

On the 14th of May, serious rioting took place in the Jakarta area. There were no signs of any uniformed soldiers on the streets.

Deaths

Over 1,000 people died during these Jakarta riots, most having been burnt in malls and supermarkets but some having been shot or beaten.

Alleged involvement of the military in planning the riots

Father Sandyawan Sumardi, a 40-year-old Jesuit priest and son of a police chief, led an independent investigation into the events of May 1998.

A security officer alleged that Kopassus (special forces) officers had ordered the burning down of a bank;

a taxi driver reported hearing a man in a military helicopter encouraging people on the ground to carry out looting;

shop-owners at a Plaza claimed that, before the riots, military officers tried to extract protection money;

a teenager claimed he and thousands of others had been trained as protesters;

a street child alleged that Kopassus officers ordered him and and his friends to become rioters;

there was a report of soldiers being dressed up as students and then taking part in rioting;

eyewitnesses spoke of muscular men with short haircuts arriving in military-style trucks and directing attacks on Chinese homes and businesses.

There were reports of children being encouraged to enter malls and then of the malls being set on fire;

there were allegations that muscular men with short haircuts had gang-raped little Chinese girls and then murdered some of them.

Suharto told he had lost the support of the military

Some of Suharto's former allies deserted him. Wiranto allowed students to occupy Parliament. Reportedly Wiranto reported to Suharto on May 20th that Suharto no longer had the support of the army. Suharto was forced to resign on May 21 and was replaced by Habibie, his Vice President.

The continuing importance of the military

Wiranto remained as chief of the armed forces. Wiranto's troops began removing the students from the parliament building.

One result of the May riots was that the military appeared to remain the power behind the throne. In 2004, General Yudhoyono became president.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

In Iraq, Britain's army has appeared to act like a bunch of Nazis."Evidence now publicly available proves that UK forces had a systematic policy that led to the execution of scores of Iraqis in detention, and the torture of countless more...

"My firm alone is acting in cases apparently involving over 30 deaths in detention including executions.

"It was standard operating procedure to hood, stress and deprive detainees of sleep, water and food. Our clients have been subjected to torture, abuse and humiliation.

"There is the clearest evidence from the court martial into the death of Baha Mousa, and other emerging evidence, that systematic abuse by UK soldiers in Iraq was rife." - Phil Shiner - In quotes: Army report reaction

The writer Mark Curtis says that in 1971 an official British investigation found that the British army's torture techniques "played an important part in counter-insurgency operations in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and the British Cameroons (1960-1), Brunei (1963), British Guiana (1964), Aden (1964-7), Borneo/Malaysia (1965-6), the Persian Gulf (1970-1) and in Northern Ireland (1971)".

KENYA

The British used beatings, sexual humiliation, hooding, sleep deprivation, and bombarding with white noise.

32 Whites were killed by the Mau Mau during the five-year state of emergency. More whites died in traffic accidents in the capital city, Nairobi.

Kenyans were forced into concentration camps and routinely tortured. Some 150,000 Africans died as a direct result of the British policy.

There was a "constant stream of reports of brutalities by police, military and home guards", wrote Canon Bewes, a British missionary. "Some of the people had been using castration instruments and two men had died under castration."

Other brutalities included slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging people to death, pouring paraffin over suspects and setting them alight and burning eardrums with cigarettes.

A British district officer admitted, "There was outright abuse of power and some of the crimes committed were horrific. One day six Mau Mau suspects were brought into a police station in the neighbouring district to mine. The British police inspector in charge lined them up against a wall and shot them."

A mobile gallows travelled the country. Over 1,000 were hanged, their bodies displayed at crossroads and market places.

MALAYSIA

The British used terror in Malaya.

This involved aerial bombing, massacres of villagers, dictatorial police measures and the "resettlement" of hundreds of thousands of people.

CYPRUS

During the state of emergency, from 1952 to 1957, the British army used torture.

Cypriot Nicos Koshies: "They took me to the Special Branch and they started beating me. They took off all my clothes, they tied my hands and feet. They asked somebody to come in. He was taking a stick to put up my bottom, he was putting cloths in water and putting them on my face so I could not breathe, he threw me down and danced on my stomach when he was wearing boots. After 12 days I could not recognise myself."

James Callaghan in the House of Commons: "On 29 June 1957 an inquest was held into the death of Nicos Georghiou. Dr Clearkin said in evidence that bruises in the head were sufficiently severe to have caused the injuries to the brain, perhaps bumping the head against a hard object."

IRAN

In 1953 a coup organised by the British and the USA overthrew Mossadeq and gave power to the Shah.

British SAS forces trained the Shah's Savak secret police. SAS officers helped train the Iranian army in special operations against the Kurds. The Shah's regime used torture until it was overthrown in 1979.

ADEN/SOUTH YEMEN

In Aden, later known as South Yemen, SAS squads used terror against local villages.

An official investigation found that from 1964 to 1967 detainees at a British interrogation centre were routinely tortured. Their eardrums were burst. Others were forced to lean against walls with their fingertips for day and subjected to white noise for hours.

BAHRAIN

Former detainees in Bahrain have described being beaten, electrocuted, whipped, tied in excruciating positions for days on end, kept awake, starved and having their toenails torn out.

NORTHERN IRELAND

The Compton official inquiry acknowledged that the army hooded suspects, fed them on just bread and water and blasted them with noise.

An Amnesty International report said, "It is because we regard the deliberate destruction of a man's ability to control his own mind with revulsion that we reserve a special place in our catalogue of moral crimes for techniques of thought control and brainwashing. Any interrogation procedure which has the purpose or effect of causing a malfunction or breakdown of a man's mental processes constitutes as grave an assault on the inherent dignity of the human person as more traditional techniques of physical torture."

A European human rights report found that British army techniques amounted to "inhuman and degrading treatment" causing "at least intense physical and mental suffering".

William Colby (1920 – 1996) was the boss of the CIA from 1973 until 1976.

He was no friend of Israel.

He knew a lot about CIA dirty tricks and he died in 'mysterious circumstances'.

In 1973, President Nixon, threatened by Watergate, sacked Richard Helms as boss of the CIA and brought in James Schlesinger. Nixon had come to distrust Helms and the CIA. (William Colby - The Education Forum )

Schlesinger felt that elements of the CIA were acting illegally, and he sacked a number of CIA officers.

Elements of the CIA made life difficult for Schlesinger; there were more leaks on Watergate. Nixon moved Schlesinger to the post of Secretary of Defence.

In 1973 William Colby became boss of the CIA. Nixon hoped he would help reveal some of the CIA dirty tricks.

In 1974, The New York Times published an article by Seymour Hersh listing illegal CIA operations. The so called CIA "family jewels" included CIA attempts to topple or assassinate foreign leaders and attempts to collect information on the political activities of US citizens.

In 1975, the year that Nixon was forced to resign, the Church Committee was set up to examine the illegal activities of the CIA.

On 28th April 1996 William Colby went on a canoe trip at Rock Point in Maryland. His body was found several days later.

Colby may have known too much about 1. The CIA and heroin 2. Israeli attempts to infiltrate and contro the CIA 3. child sex abuse scandals and the CIA.

1. William Colby was an officer of the Nugan Hand Bank, 'which was a CIA bank in all but name'. Reportedly, the bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. (CIA and Drugs WBLUM)

The August 20, 1996 issue of The Sun, a supermarket tabloid, carried an exciting 'newsflash' which announced, "Dead CIA Chief Was Set To Finally Blow Lid on JFK Assassination".

The tabloid announced that former CIA director William Colby had been planning to blow the whistle on the truth about the assassination...

....The fact is, that while serving as CIA director, William Colby was considered hostile to Israel's interests, so much so that it was Colby who fired the Mossad's longtime agent-in-place at the CIA, James Jesus Angleton, who has been documented in 'Final Judgement' as the key CIA player in the JFK assassination conspiracy...

According to Wolf Blitzer, longtime Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post: 'CBS News back in 1975 reported that Angleton had lost his job in December 1974 because of policy disputes over Israel...

Wolf Blitzer has written about how many high ranking CIA officials didn't share Angleton's enthusiasm for Israel, citing Colby as a specific example...'

In the Spring of 1996, Colby contacted a veteran journalist whom he knew to be friendly with top Arab diplomatic, military and intelligence officials and requested that the journalist arrange for Colby to meet with a certain high-level Arab official....According to a former federal security administrator who attended one of the meetings, Colby and his Arab associate 'had shared concerns. Both men knew that their respective Governments were being infiltrated and manipulated by Israeli agents. Following these meetings, Colby agreed to go to work as a confidential advisor to Arab interests'.

It is interesting to note further that Colby's death came at a critical time when the Israeli lobby in Washington was engaged in a major behind-the-scenes effort to substantially expand the power of the CIA and its then director, John Deutch, a Belgian born Jewish refugee and longtime Washington figure known for his close ties to Israeli intelligence...

Colby would have emerged as a very loud and public critic of such proposals.

3. John DeCamp, who had once worked for Colby, investigated the Franklin child sex abuse case.

Reportedly: Many of the children described satanic rituals that they were forced to attend, some of which involved sacrificing infants and young children. Children attending these sacrifices were warned that if they ever told anyone they would be the next to be sacrificed. In addition, they told of being flown to locations around the country in King’s private plane to parties where they were expected to take part in any sexual acts demanded of them...

Several of the children in Kings prostitution ring recount stories of seeing George Bush at some of King’s Parties. While an outsider would not suspect anything amiss, the children in the ring would know what was taking place. At least one of King’s young prostitutes reported that at one party, she saw George Bush pay King and then depart with a young black man... At least two of (King's) victims have been wrongly imprisoned for refusing to recant their testimony. (George Bush, The CIA, Mind Control & Child Abuse)

Pedophile victim Paul Bonacci, reportedly kidnapped and forced into sex slavery between the ages of 6 and 17, told U.S. District Court Judge Warren Urbom in sworn testimony on February 5, 1999:

"Where were the parties?...down in Washington, DC...and that was for sex...There was sex between adult men and other adult men but most of it had to do with young boys and young girls with the older folks...specifically for sex with minors...Also in Washington, DC, there were parties after a party...there were a lot of parties where there would be senators and congressmen who had nothing to do with the sexual stuff. But there were some senators and congressmen who stayed for the [pedophile sex] parties afterwards...on a lot of the trips he took us on he had us, I mean, I met some people that I don't feel comfortable telling their name because I don't want to ---

...Q: Are you scared?...Yes..."

In his testimony to Judge Urbom, Bonacci reportedly named Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) as having participated in the parties.

Urbom did not ask Bonacci to identify photos of specific senators and congressmen, or reveal their names in court.

Bonacci said about Larry King: "I threatened to go to the police in California, thought maybe they would listen whereas in Omaha they were in his pocketbook...he had me hung out of an airplane with a rope by my ankles...If they wanted to get something passed through the legislature, he would put some people that were against it in a compromising position. By using us boys and girls...Judge Urbom: Was this by your being the sexual partner of that person?...Yes...Judge Urbom: ...Any estimates of how often you participated as the sexual partner of one of these persons that he wanted to get some kind of control over?...There were times when it would be four or five in a night...on probably a couple thousand times...sometimes dozens of times with the same person..."

Paul Bonacci claimed the sex ring was based at Offutt U.S. Air Force Base near Omaha. Bonacci said he was abused at the air force base from the age of three onwards. The abuse began in 1970. At Offutt, Paul said he was "trained" by tortures, heavy drugging and sexual degradation.

Offutt AFB was George W. Bush post 9 11 headquarters for a short period.

Larry King was reportedly released from prison on April 11, 2001 after serving about five years.GOP operative Larry King allegedly hired photographers to capture legislators and high officials in compromising sexual positions with children.

Rusty Nelson reportedly confirmed Bonacci’s testimony to Judge Urbom: "Q: Children on the airplane?...yes. Q: How young?...There was one situation went back to Washington, DC...he had probably 10, 12 years old...Q: Boys, girls?...Both...Q: Who attended the parties?...Prominent business people, very prominent high-ranking officials, politicians. The younger people. What would transpire was they would have a party and then a party after the party...after the party was more of a sex-type deal...That’s what Larry [King] would -- -- Q: These old politicians were having sex with each other?...Or people Larry would bring...some younger people...Did you take pictures of the parties?...I took pictures at some of the parties, yes..."

The Secret Service allegedly allowed Paul Bonacci into the White House on July 3, 1988.

A June 29, 1989 Washington Times front page story was headed: "Homosexual prostitution inquiry ensnares VIPs with Reagan, Bush."

Reporters Paul Rodriguez and George Archibald said "Call-boys took midnight tour of White House."

According to a Nebraska state police report, pedophile victims Nelly and Kimberly Webb detailed a massive child sex, homosexual and pornography operation run out of Nebraska by Larry King, but with close ties directly to the White House.

A Nebraska Dept. of Social Services report, by Mrs Julie Walters: "Nelly indicates she attended a party in Chicago with King and the male youths. She indicated George Bush was present...she sat at a table at the party wearing nothing but a negligee. She stated George Bush saw her on the table. She stated she saw George Bush pay King money and Bush left the party with a nineteen year old black boy named Brent."